astrid-runtime/astrid · error

git could not read captured version: {}

Error message

git could not read captured version: {}

What it means

For each valid revision, `version_chain_from_git` reads the file content with `git show <revision>:<path>`. If that subprocess fails, the error includes git's trimmed stderr, so this message reports why git could not read the captured version.

Source

Thrown at crates/astrid-storage-chunker-evidence/src/corpus.rs:114

        }
        let revisions = String::from_utf8(revisions.stdout).context("git emitted non-UTF-8 IDs")?;
        let mut inputs = Vec::new();
        for revision in revisions.lines() {
            if revision.is_empty() || !revision.bytes().all(|byte| byte.is_ascii_hexdigit()) {
                bail!("git emitted an invalid revision ID");
            }
            if !git_path_exists_at_revision(repository, relative_path, revision)? {
                continue;
            }
            let object = format!("{revision}:{}", relative_path.to_string_lossy());
            let version = Command::new("git")
                .args(["-C"])
                .arg(repository)
                .args(["show", &object])
                .output()
                .context("read captured version")?;
            if !version.status.success() {
                bail!(
                    "git could not read captured version: {}",
                    String::from_utf8_lossy(&version.stderr).trim()
                );
            }
            inputs.push(memory(version.stdout));
        }
        if inputs.len() < 2 {
            bail!("captured version chain must contain at least two readable versions");
        }
        Self::from_files(name, CorpusKind::VersionChain, inputs)
    }

    pub fn synthetic_adversarial() -> Self {
        let mebibyte = 1024 * 1024;
        let inputs = vec![
            memory(Vec::new()),
            memory(vec![0x5a]),
            memory(vec![0x7e; 4093]),

View on GitHub (pinned to affd8760f4)

Solutions

1. Read the included stderr in the error message — run the same `git show` command to reproduce.
2. Fetch missing objects if in a partial/shallow clone (`git fetch --unshallow` or `--filter=blob:none` removal).
3. Run `git fsck` to detect repository/object corruption.
4. Ensure the repository is not mutated concurrently while the chain is being read.

// Ensure the blob is locally available before reading
let out = Command::new("git").arg("-C").arg(&repo).args(["cat-file", "-e", &object]).output()?;
assert!(out.status.success(), "object {object} not present locally");

match version_chain_from_git(&repo, &path, name) {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("could not read captured version") => {
        // parse stderr from the error; fetch missing objects, then retry once
    }
    other => other,
}

When it happens

Trigger: `git show <rev>:<path>` returns non-zero — e.g. the path does not exist at that revision (though existence is pre-checked, races are possible), object corruption, or a shallow/partial clone lacking the blob.

Common situations: Partial/shallow clones where blobs were not fetched; corrupted or pruned objects; the file removed between the existence check and the show (TOCTOU in a live repo); permission issues running git in the repo.

Understand the failure class

Background: "git command failed": what it means when a tool shells out to git and git exits non-zero — this error's family across 21 libraries.

Related errors

• Failed to clone repository from GitHub.
• git could not enumerate the captured version chain
• astrid-build failed with exit code {}
• ps failed while inspecting MCP processes
• git emitted an invalid revision ID

AI-assisted analysis of astrid-runtime/astrid@affd8760f4 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d7d5727f2fcfdd7a. Report an issue: GitHub.